


The Knight's Prose

by Sandentwins



Category: Wonderful (Book Series)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-27
Updated: 2015-10-27
Packaged: 2018-04-28 12:23:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5090606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sandentwins/pseuds/Sandentwins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Knight's Ballad as seen from Starlight's perspective.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Slain

The first thing I felt was pain.  
Then, a wave of cold hit me.  
It was so sudden, and at the same time horribly scary. My body was ripping apart under the force she threw me away with. When I hit the water, the pressure slashed my back, almost as hard as her claws, which bleedy traces were still on my chest and throat.   
As I started to fall deeper in the lake, my sight became blurry, and my ears filled up with water. I tried to swim up, to react, but it was already too late: I realized in horror that my blood had left dark crimson trails above me, instead of irrigating my muscles. I blinked, trying to move, even the slightest. My hands vainly flapped, like useless flippers, my arms getting too heavy. In my chest, I felt my heart pounding against my broken ribs, my blood leaving my body way too fast. I wanted to scream, to call for help, anything that would be useful. Alas, there was nothing, no one who could hear me, as deep as I was.   
My lungs started to burn, begging for air, but my throat was blocked. My head was heavy, so heavy, pulling me deeper in the bloodstained lake. I tried to fight gravity, to develop an instinctive swimming reflex...but nothing happened.   
As water got into my lungs, slowly at first, my mind became duller. For how long had I been falling down? Seconds, minutes, years were foreign to me. The cold was biting my injured organs, taking my whole body into its freezing arms. I needed to breathe...to swim up and take a long inspiration...to feel the fresh air in my lungs...to make my body work again...to survive! But that cold...and that light, they were so strong...so appealing...  
For a moment...a last bribe of consciousness made me blink slowly...staring at that reddish light shining above me. Where was it...coming from? Did the Beast want to take a last look at her drowning...piece of food? Did she want to watch my agony, my suffering, only because she was...an evil being? Would I undergo such an humiliation before dying? As I thought about it, my decaying mind focused on my life, and what the creature had done with it.  
I had a family, once. But I was the elder, and thus had to be devoured. The dark, moisty cave we were stacked in, hungry and cold, waiting for the claws to reach us and devour us. The injustice I have felt when my best friends got swallowed like pickles, without any hesitation, mercilessly, shredded in the beak of this monster. My tears all over my hands. The rage I have felt when my turn had arrived. How I confronted the Beast, trying by every possible mean to resist its...beak. The claws, ripping my body to shreds. And the tail, throwing me...miles away like garbage, to land in the...cold waters.  
The light...seemed to have gone stronger. Something...was odd about it. The scarlet flames weren't...threatening like the monster's eyes...but instead...comforting. I felt..like home...a warm fire...the smell of supper...soft bed... Its beams were...taking me in...slowly...and on...the moment...it felt...so...good...  
suddenly adrenaline rushed to my head as pain disappeared and my breathing eased using a newcoming strenght I jumped out of the water rocketing straight up to the skies I didn't know why or how that was possible all I knew was I needed to survive I needed to live and I needed to beat the fuck out of this Beast make it pay for everything it has done  
It was so sudden. I took a large, deep breath, swallowing the air I needed so much. How I ended up so high in the sky when seconds ago I just drowned, it was a complete mystery to me. My ears perked up as the wind whistled, my short tail flickered, my claws and spurs tore my rags apart. The water I died in had bleached out my skin, turning it pale blue. On my neck, dried out gills were urging for water, and under my slender fingers, brought against my single-breasted chest, I felt a heartbeat too vast for only one heart. I took another breath of the midnight sky, and rose my head. One constellation among all the others was shining of a bright red light.   
On that moment, weird voices started to talk into my head. They were so deafening, I felt as if my skull would be broken apart by their loud tones. But strangely, I understood them. And I knew what to do.  
Moving my hands with the wind, I wrapped it around my freezing body, which covered itself in light clothes, woven of unknown fabric. My flaming shoes got a grip of the breeze, allowing me to float in the air. Finally, I grabbed a piece of the starry sky (how I did that, I never remembered), and put it on as a coat. I felt a new power going straight through my veins, emerging on my hands in the shape of blue flames. These energy waves seemed to directly obey my mind and thoughts. Releasing control, I let myself fall down, above the lake I drowned in. Reacting only at the very last second, my feet touched the water without falling in; I ran on the surface, leaving a large trail on the water behing, where fish jumped out of. I stopped; fish? This lake was supposed to be dead! How could animals even breathe its water?  
An idea came to me. Looking at my blueish palms, I noticed the energy flames appeared whenever I wanted to. I touched the water, and let them run across the calm surface. Dirtied waters started turning clean and translucent again, fishes, corals and sea animals brought back to life.   
Apparently, I found the way to end the misery caused by the Beast. And maybe because I dared stand against my own sacrifice, speak up against injustice and say out loud what everyone wouldn't dare whispering, it was now my burden, to fight the demons, to revive what was dead. But as I was thinking about it, a sudden shriek became heard from beyond the horizon, so deep it made my hearts stop for a second. The pure water became infected with dark energy, and all the animals were dying out. Diving onto the rocks, I grabbed a lobstercrab, and rose just in time. In my gleaming hands, that one crustacean was safe.   
I sat on the water, calmly petting the crab, thinking about my new role. Everything I have restored has been quickly destroyed again. As useless as the drowned's breath and the blind's light, and I was both of them. So, if I wanted this world to survive, I needed to get rid of the beast first.  
As if they understood my thought, the stars shane brighter. Then, so slowly I didn't notice at first, one of them started falling down. That shooting star trailed across the sky for a long minute, lighting up every other star on its path, before pointing at me. I grabbed the abdomen of my lobstercrab, knowing what to do, and slowly walked on the lake towards the falling light. As it fastened, I began running. When the star lowered to my level, I held the crustacean as hard as I could, and hit the light as soon as it reached me. The crab caught the star between its pincers, turning into an amber animal, the traces of my fingers forming a neat handle. The shining crystal took the shape of a sharp, long azure blade. In my hand now was a sword, directly given by the stars.  
I grinned, revealing ivory fangs. Now I had a weapon and new powers, my mission would be a child's play. I jumped as high as I could, flying upwards to that one constellation that saved me. On the moment, I knew its name: Cancer. That made me think: what would be mine? I didn't remember my old name. Looking at the brightest stars, I searched my mind about it. My blind sight came across the light of my bodkin, the lobstercrab wriggling in my hand. I smiled.  
I am the Stellar Knight, gifted with the Drowned's Breath and the Blind's Light, Heir of the Azure Blade and Seer of the Starlight, first of the Nyalii' species. But for short, I shall be named Starlight Blade.   
I only have one mission: to slay the Beast, just as it had slain me.


	2. Life

I have died. I have turned into a magical Knight. I did slain the Beast. But then?  
The land was still dead. Except for the lake, there was no water in the wells. No plants where the creature had ever stepped. The air was cold, deadly cold. Even with this horrible tumorific beast removed, the land didn't fare better. Yet the people were dying.   
I needed to help them. But how? How could godlike fighting powers be of any use in such a case?  
Descending from my cloudy seat, I walked to the nearbiest village, and asked to a young farmer if I could help with anything. Was it my blue face, my dead eyes, or the moving constellations on my coat that made him run away screaming? Well, talk about a way to thank me. I saved you, afterall. But there was no time to be this selfish. I tried to ask someone else if they wanted help, as common duties were now no problem to me, and yet again they absconded like if they saw the Beast herself. Everytime I approached someone, they were fleeing from me. I sighed, and sat on a rock, depressed. After all I've done, why wouldn't anyone like me anymore? Did they even like me in my past life? I couldn't remember. All I recalled was the cold embrace of the lake's water.   
Playing with my sword's blade, I tried to find a new use to my powers. Well, what could one do with such infinite possibilities? Maybe not trying to have social skills. That's the drawback of being a Knight.  
That's when I noticed a small wheat seed between two rocks. It probably had fallen from a sack of flour...and that gave me an idea.   
I chose a small, empty piece of land, and buried the seed just what needed. Then, taking a step back, I summoned some water and light to help it grow. Slowly, but surely, a wheat stem started to appear, greenish at first, then taking a nice golden color. A bit of wind, a pinch of cold, and it resulted in splenderful grains to fall off. I picked them up, having found a way to be useful.   
As I was repeating my experiments, people had started to come out of their hidings, and look at what I was doing. This soil was supposed to be sterile; yet, the strange creature I had become was growing a year-worth, full-grown harvest with their hands for only tools. By the time I had finished, the whole village was there, applauding for me. Somehow...this felt nice. Some were calling me a demon, some were praising me, but all of them couldn't ignore that I did cancel the Beast's black magic. This opened new perspectives to me; I ran to the river's spring, dried out for years. A single, well-placed kick made it spit out clear water again, to everyone's astonishment. Running next to the river, I created living fishes out of rocks. Flying up, I crafted birds with pieces of cloud. What I did was extraordinary...yet it wasn't enough.  
There were hundreds of places I'd need to check one by one to fully restore the land, but instead I chose a less direct and more efficient method.  
I came back to the lake, and cleared its waters with a good kick. Lobstercrabs started to sing, and their melody, only audible by crustacean ears, gave me hope. I listened to it while choosing a nice soil next to the water, and starting the ritual.  
I put my palms on the ground, and let my energy flow in. The amount of madness in my gesture couldn't be ever reached anymore, but their lives were more worth than mine. I summoned the earth, and commanded it to be fertile again. I summoned the wind, and told it to blow the fog away. The fire, to heat up the ice. The water, to fill the underground, and create more ponds and rivers. The sun, to shine away the fears. The moon, to rise again. The light, to warm everyone's heart.   
One by one, the twelve elements were summoned, all under my control, and spread on the dead lands to create life again. Trees started to grow, animals to appear...and yet it wasn't enough.   
I lifted my arms and started to sing. My voice, being since my metamorphosis a horrible mashup of barely understandable sounds, turned almost melodious, as I commanded to the stars to shine as bright as they could. I could hear afraid people asking themselves what was going on and running to their homes. Then, slowly, in an outburst of gleaming blasts, the constellations descended.  
Around me were now twelve figures, each representing a constellation. Twelve difformous creatures, some animal, some humanoid, some looking like strange machines. One by one, I created crowns out of star sparkles, and crowned them with these. Once my job done, I smiled, and adressed them.

"This is my heirloom to thee, mine dear friends. A new day breaks upon us, and now I declare thee..."

I had a hard time finding the right name. But it came to me like an evidence.

"...the new fair rulers of the reborn Wonderland."

On these words, I closed my dead eyes, and let my body vanish into all sorts of elements. Fire, light, wind, I couldn't feel anything but that. On top of all, it felt...relieving. It felt absolutely good, absolutely amazing, as if all of my fears were gone. I maybe had become the Starlight Blade, but my human conscience has still been in my mind since...but now it wouldn't anymore.  
Forests started to grow, rivers to flow. Animals peeked out of their burrows, wind whistled in the branches, and flowers bloomed of their brightest colors.  
As my being turned into the earth, the water, the sky, the life, I opened my eyes a last time, and saw the prodigy I have done.   
A last breath, and Wonderland was born.


End file.
